Red,

The length and stiffness of the leader come into play in the presentation of the fly on the cast. Sure, you could have just a couple of feet of leader but the cast will probably hit the water awkwardly. For Musky/Pike, its not really a big deal. however, when it comes to shooting flies up under overhanging branches and the like, that leader helps quite a bit to turn the fly over and go those extra few feet. Its tough to explain without being able to see it in person.

For the figure-8, out of a 5' leader, I pull about 3' of that through the guides and maneuver with the remaining leader. As you can imagine, once you have too much leader out, the flyrod just doesn't have alot of spine to do an efficient Figure-8.

As I've mentioned, there are a ton of different ways to set up your gear. After you try a few, you'll start to get a feel for what you prefer and what might work best for you're style of fishing. My recommendations are just things that are working for me right now. Seems I change up a thing or 2 every season